B2B Marketing Blog

So webinars have been kicking around for a while now - but there are still plenty of B2B companies who are not leveraging this channel! Webinars eradicate the barriers of time and geography and make it easy for anyone to access your content anytime, anywhere.

In our latest edition of B2B Inbound Marketing Stories, we spoke with Kelvin Newman, founder of BrightonSEO, the UK's largest SEO conference and MD of Rough Agenda, one of the new breed of B2B events companies shaking up the conference scene. In the interview, Kelvin reveals the secret sauce behind selling out his event in just 60 seconds and shares some pointers on how larger, traditional events businesses can incorporate a start up mentality to steer them to revenue success.

I know that in the events industry we are encouraged to take advantage of all marketing tools at our disposal, and try new things to drive registrations and build awareness of our events. But it’s important to realise that not all channels hold the same value. To me PPC (pay per click) marketing is the perfect example of this – and I would go as far as saying that using PPC to promote your event can be a complete waste of money if you do not approach it right.

Last year, me and other industry industry professionals were asked by Eventbrite to provide an event industry trend, opportunity or challenge that will be affecting the industry this year. It was a challenging question as in my mind there are plenty of them to hightlight. However after a long consideration I decided to pinpoint one of the major ones:

What is currently happening in the conference and events industry?

Where are we heading?

Well, like any other fast-growing and successful industry, this is always the topic of conversation when we meet with industry folk or overhear the banter at conference industry events. Every director of a conference, event or exhibition company is asking these questions and it's clear that anyone not thinking ahead will surely be left behind. As successful as the events industry is, nobody can afford to be complacent especially in this entrepreneurial, digital era.

So we have partnered with CatchTalk.TV (formerly known as Xavy) to bring you precisely that. The most talked about predictions for the conferences and events industry in the near future.

As we all know the conference and events industry is constantly changing and we're now in a thriving market with the usual well established players, a new breed of specialised, niche event companies, media publishers and B2B companies doing their own events who are revolutionising the industry with fresh initiatives and sometimes daring tactics.

In the business world in North America the name Brian Solis is everywhere. A serial entrepreneur and business visionary he is a very well respected source of opinion when it comes to social media and marketing.

Hard to believe another week is behind us and we're fast approaching month two of 2013! Well here's our Friday round up of some of the most useful B2B marketing and event marketing stories we've come across this week.

At this time of year most B2B marketing directors are creating their strategies for the year ahead, working on the aggressive growth plans set by senior management and figuring out how far their budgets will stretch this time around.

If anyone’s seen the new “Don’t Fly” campaign by British Airways, I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s a pretty brave and bold campaign. BA says the “tongue-in-cheek” advertising campaign is to encourage Britons to stay in the UK and “rally the country to get behind Team GB and ParalympicsGB.”

I’m always keeping an eye out for interesting and quirky marketing campaigns and tactics. Not to sound geeky but it really gives me a sense of purpose and a buzz – just always being aware of whats around me and what you can learn.